


I Want To Roll You Up Into My Life

by elbatross



Series: The Marimo AU [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fish, Gen, M/M, Marimo, Other, Plants, they are marimo what else should i say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 05:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbatross/pseuds/elbatross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank likes fish and has a few aquariums, but after years of fostering creatures that only live for a short amount of time, he decides he wants something that lasts a little longer. Enter Charles and Erik, the incredible (and in the case of one, very dangerous) marimo, who catch his interest in their strange behavior deemed atypical for a couple of balls of algae. It's no wonder they immediately reminded him of his professors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Roll You Up Into My Life

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know what I'm doing with my life, all I know is that Gokuma on tumblr prompted it and me liking crazy ideas decided that I needed to be the one to write it. 
> 
> There's a POV change every so often, but it's traditional in this fandom to give voices to objects and beings which cannot usually speak and that was the only way to do it.
> 
> Yes that is a Katamari Damacy reference in the title and it's pretty fitting when pertaining to Erik.

Hank McCoy had a bad habit of taking in aquatic life that seemed to have a little more misfortune than others. Over the years, he’d collected everything from wonky swimming goldfish to abandoned oscars and everything in between, mourning the loss of pet after pet when it eventually died of old age. It took a few years and a tank containing a warring pair of elderly red bellied piranha (affectionately named Sabretooth and Wolverine, he’d shyly admit when asked) to convince him that he wanted something a little more hardy and long lasting.

This is what led to him adopting a couple of marimo moss balls he dubbed “Erik” and “Charles,” quietly choosing the names and vowing to never mention his new pets to the professors at school. Charles was the first he’d adopted, found in his local fish shop on the front counter with a for sale sign on the bowl. He was a tiny thing, rolling and bobbing in the water with a friendliness Hank had never before seen in a plant. Ten bucks later, Charles was packed into a little cup and on his way to a new home, still content to float until he was placed in a proper tank to settle. He adjusted well into the family, sometimes distracting the fish in the tank on the other side of the room for long enough to keep them from fighting and generally being great emotional support for his master while he studied. Charles lived a good life for a marimo, constantly filtering in the light from the little bulb above his tank for food and rolling about, but he almost seemed lonely when Hank stopped to look at him. Maybe he was just attaching his own emotions to the little ball of algae, but he still felt that he had to do something. So he headed to his computer and started to browse his usual aquarium addicts forum for marimo adoptions.

That was how he found Erik, who was decidedly more of a moss lump than ball and unusually highly predatory. Erik, once known as Max by his former owner, was quite a bit bigger than his own Charles and had reportedly devoured _several_ guppies in his time as resident tank maintenance He hardly floated unless it was absolutely necessary, didn’t take kindly to being rinsed, and usually poked at his caretaker with one of the infinite spiny fish bones hidden in his short fuzz. Quite simply, he’d become too dangerous to handle and was in danger of being cut up and strewn across the tank to become breeding moss, and even with all the strikes against him Hank still wanted the little devil. Erik arrived in the mail a couple of weeks later, slightly browned all over and sharp with fish debris, then dumped into the tank with Charles with the hopes that Hank would still have two marimo in the morning.

***

Fortunately for Hank, Charles was far friendlier than Erik was grumpy. Upon spotting his new companion at the top of the tank, he floated up to the top to bump against him, not at all bothered by the intrusion of fish bones into his form.

“Hello, you must be Erik. It’s nice to meet you, this tank was getting to be a little too big for one marimo, don’t you think?” He pushed against him again, a little alarmed when Erik immediately started to sink into the water. Charles floated a little ways off to allow him to fully submerge into the water, a little impressed at the feat. “I’ve never seen one of us sink so quickly unless we’re tied to something.” He tried to do it himself, sending himself spinning too quickly to the other side of the tank. Eventually, he made it to the bottom of the tank, rolling along excitedly and explaining all the decor to Erik as the larger plant remained silent. When night fell and Hank finally headed off to his bedroom, Charles invited Erik to share the large castle in the corner for the night, only to have his invitation soundlessly refused for the first time. 

For the first few weeks, Erik kept quiet and still at the bottom of the aquarium, only moving to keep himself from getting too brown and brooding at the loss of his weapons when The Human rinsed him during their water changings. While he protested at first by rolling away whenever a hand dipped into the tank, he eventually surrendered when the promise of watching Charles getting pampered presented itself. Sure, Charles was abrasive and a little too friendly at times, but unlike the laughing guppies from his first home, he didn’t judge Erik for his obvious shortcomings as a marimo. Not everyone could be perfectly round, Charles assured him, and that being a little more oval shaped made him look more like a fuzzy rock. He couldn’t fault Charles for admiring how sturdy he looked. Erik grew to like Charles a little more for not mentioning how little he floated as well, for while he was a marimo, his resemblance to a rock was unfortunately a little too true. He’d never been any good at it and had actually never learned how to properly float, the chance impeded by a crab named Sebastian who liked to sit on top of him in his early days of forming. There had never been a better day in his life than when he’d absorbed Sebastian as he slept and proudly left his shell save for one claw in the front corner of the tank, even if it had caused his current lumpiness.

It was another one of those cleaning days when Erik got a closer look at Charles, admiring the lush, deep green of his fuzz and perfect roundness of his little body. He rolled in the holding cup to get a better peek, feeling a little greener himself as he watched Charles being rinsed and squeezed. Erik allowed The Human to handle him just once, only fighting when it tried to reshape him into something a fraction more spherical. Once their home and bodies were clean, Charles started his routine laps around the tank while Erik attempted to stay afloat this once. A moment passed before he swallowed his pride and spoke up.

“You’re a pretty decent floater for being so small.” He cringed (as much as a marimo could, anyhow) and watched Charles almost light up and spin towards him to nudge against him. 

“I could teach you, and maybe you could help me stick the landings as well as you do. A fair trade, you think?” Erik started to sink with embarrassment, quickly struggling to bounce back up with a little of Charles’s help.

“If you insist, I think that’ll be doable.”

***

Hank started to notice changes in the behavior of his marimo within the week, the most obvious being Erik’s attempts to follow Charles. At first, he thought little of it, thinking that maybe Erik had finally gotten sick of his smaller tank mate and was attempting to absorb him into his mass. Then a week passed, and he noticed it becoming a daily thing. No one on the forum had reported such behavior, even when he posted a recording of the phenomena on Youtube. He did get notice on some of the more popular viral video television programs, much to his surprise, but nothing more on what might be causing his pets to play such a peculiar game of chase. It did get him some attention from Professor Xavier’s sister once she found out that the “cute little moss balls that play tag” belonged to him, but the scientist in him wanted to know the real reason behind it all. He started to keep a diary of their behaviors after that, noting down anything else that seemed odd about the pair of marimo.

***

Erik eventually mastered floating thanks to all of Charles’s help, but Charles still had some difficulty sinking. He’d grown just a little in their time together, but he produced such a surprisingly strong current with his rolling that he caught himself in it and had a hard time getting down. They quickly solved the issue in what Erik would say was the most gratifying arrangement in his sure to be long life: Charles simply had to tangle his moss with Erik’s and allow himself to be pulled down. It seemed easy enough and worked fantastically, but afterwards they would be stuck until they could manage to pull away from one another.

Not that they really wanted to, but they were two separate marimo with differing outlooks on life and behaviors. Other couples might enjoy the idea of assimilating and becoming one ball, but that meant losing a sense of self that they both valued entirely too much. So they reluctantly pulled themselves apart each time, feeling a little fuller and feeling more buoyant than after a cleaning, and Erik allowed Charles to take his time rolling away from him. Some time later, they could be found resting against one another contently, or if The Human wasn’t around and the sharp toothed brothers across the room were too busy bickering to notice, Erik wouldn’t protest to Charles landing on top of him to rest. They rotated and floated together from then on, and when a couple of small fish were added to their home, Erik was satisfied in merely pushing them about rather than eating them to keep Charles happy.

***

Professor Xavier proclaimed that he’d never seen anything like them in his studies, not even on a genetic level. They were a new breed of their species, more active and with more personality than their fellow algae. Hank felt a little pride swelling in his heart as the professor clacked away at his laptop to document their findings about his pets, but his face paled a little when the inevitable was asked.

“Hank, what were their names again? I can’t call them ‘Thing One’ and ‘Thing Two.’ It’d be highly disrespectful to treat them as such when they seem so sentient.” The professor eagerly awaited his answer, encouraging him with a little smile as he watched their subjects bob in their aquarium.

“Charles and Erik, sir. The little one is Charles, kind of like…well, you know. I can change it if you want, I just named them that because they remind me of-” He was interrupted with a gasp and quiet chuckle, turning his attention to the tank where Charles pointed with his finger.

“Well, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think your Charles and Erik have been busy little marimo. There are three more in here, very small, but still more. If this gets me a date to the convention with Professor Lehnsherr this spring, I’ll be sure to put in a good word with my sister.” Charles fondly regarded the two spheres clumped together in the tank. He swore that the smaller one nudged against his finger as it rested on the tank.

**Author's Note:**

> If you caught the reference to groovyphilia's "Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted," then congrats. It was meant to be very minor in the fact that there was a crab named Sebastian, but until Charlie brought it up I didn't even realize that it could be what happened post-story. If it's accepted there, then you can consider it canon here.


End file.
